Within its Mission and in its operations, ICANN will respect internationally recognized Human Rights. ICANN would be obligated to respect internationally recognized Human Rights, but only to the extent consistent with its mission. Respect might be defined at least in part according to the Ruggie principles, i.e., avoid infringing on the internationally recognized human rights of others), but that is going to require work in Work Stream 2. Again, if we use Ruggie, "internationally recognized Human Rights" would mean "at a minimum,
as those expressed in the International Bill of Human Rights and the
principles concerning fundamental rights set out in the International
Labour Organization’s Declaration on Fundamental Principles and
Rights at Work." The reference to the ILO Declaration shows a bit of a mis-fit with ICANN as a business enterprise, since Ruggie is aimed primarily at business's relationship with employees, supply chain, etc., and may not fit so well with an organization whose "product" is technical coordination and the implementation of global policy set by non-employee stakeholders. So this might be good for ICANN's overworked policy staff! Of course, that is a Work Steam 2 discussion....
This commitment shall not in any way create an obligation for ICANN, or any entity having a relationship with ICANN, to protect or enforce Human Rights beyond what may be required by applicable law. The key here is that it does not "create an obligation" for ICANN. In other words, it doesn't add any new "protection or enforcement" obligations for ICANN. However, there is nothing in this language that is in any way preventative, nor does it take away (or "relieve") any obligations ICANN may have -- whether in law, ICANN policy, or in contract. As such, it does not prevent ICANN from choosing to do anything within its mission that could be viewed as protecting or enforcing Human Rights regardless of whether its part of applicable law. (I'll save my response on the "applicable law" discussion for a different email.) This sentence also acknowledges that ICANN does have an obligation to follow all applicable laws (including those that protect Human Rights). Ruggie classifies "protecting" and "enforcing" as inherent the powers (and duties) of government, not of a private company. In explaining "protecting" Human Rights, Ruggie refers to a duty to "prevent, investigate, punish and redress [Human Rights] abuse through effective policies, legislation, regulations and adjudication." This implies that "protecting and enforcing" is not merely doing something that might qualify as protecting, enforcing or preventing, etc. Human Rights; it is using the power of the state to do so. (The rest of the Ruggie definition is even more oriented toward what states can do.) Of course, a private company can (and should) try to "prevent [Human Rights] abuse" in its workplace "through effective policies." If I follow Ruggie's logic, that would still be considered "respecting" Human Rights and not protecting or enforcing Human Rights. As such, if you follow Ruggie literally, it could be said that ICANN (not having the power of the state) could not "protect or enforce" Human Rights even if it tried. Of course, ICANN has powers that are different from those of a typical "business enterprise." And "protect and enforce" can be construed more broadly than Ruggie does, so that things businesses do could be called "protecting" and "enforcing."
In particular, this does not create any additional obligation for ICANN to respond to or consider any complaint, request, or demand seeking the enforcement of Human Rights by ICANN. This is intended to insulate ICANN from claims that the new Bylaw creates a new job for ICANN -- Human Rights "enforcer." Again, ICANN could "enforce" Human Rights, if it chose to do so, and if you don't read "enforce" so narrowly that it is only the power of a sovereign state. (If you do read "enforce" narrowly, ICANN couldn't "enforce" anything even if it tried, since it is a private entity -- but that gets us back to the issue that ICANN is not a typical "business enterprise".)
This Bylaw provision will not enter into force until a Framework of Interpretation is developed as part of “Work Stream 2” by the CCWG-Accountability or another Cross Community Working Group chartered for such purpose by one or more Supporting Organizations or Advisory Committees. One could say this means the Bylaw is merely symbolic, and does nothing until the FoI is developed and adopted, and is itself "in force." However, it does a little more than that, for better or worse -- it creates a presumption that the particular words of the Bylaw are the rights words for the Bylaw, regardless of where Work Stream 2 takes us. So, if the work of the CCWG-WS2 concludes that these words have "issues" and we'd all be better off with variations, additions, subtractions or wholesale changes, it will be a bit of an uphill battle to remove the "not-yet-in-force-but-already-adopted" language and replace it with "new and improved" language. It may also tend to force WS2 to try and deal with these words and make the best of it, rather than coming out at the end of the process with both a FoI and a matching bylaw. But c'est la vie....
ICANN shall support the establishment and work of such a Group to facilitate development of the Framework of Interpretation as promptly as possible. To paraphrase Warren Zevon, "Give us lawyers, guns and money."